By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – African-American contractors in St. Louis say they are not getting their fair share of work from the Hazelwood school system.
The district is spending about $70 million to build four new middle schools.
And Monday, five minority contractors' groups protested at district headquarters. Eric Vickers is a spokesman for the groups.
"You're trying to avoid the issue," Vickers said. "You're trying to avoid the racism that's rampant out here in this school district. You're trying to avoid the fact that you don't have any blacks or minorities working on these construction projects, the fact that you're spending $70 million of taxpayer money out here and you have no black people working."
The groups say they'll use civil disobedience if the district doesn't meet their demands.
But construction manager Scott Wilson said the problem is that there are not enough of those firms to work on all the public projects with minority inclusion guidelines.
All the civil disobedience in the world won't suddenly create a better or bigger minority subcontracting base. Just saying it won't make it so.
Wilson said the goal is to include 15 percent minority-owned subcontractors. He says nearly 13 percent of the contracts have gone to those companies.